Manipur Congress trains gun at BJP, to move court against rebel MLAs

IMPHAL, May 4: The Congress’ Manipur on Wednesday said it will move the high court for disqualifications of six party legislators who defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party is constrained to take recourse to legal redress since Speaker Y. Khemchand is resorting to delaying tactics, Congress state Vice President and spokesman K. Joykishan said. The six MLAs who had joined the BJP without first resigning from the membership of the assembly are T. Shyamkumar, G. Zou, Y. Surchandra, S. Bira, O. Lukhoi and N. Haokip.

Joykishan said: “We are not pleased with the statement of the Speaker that the matter is being examined.” “When Chief Minister N. Biren Singh joined the BJP from the Congress of which he had been the Vice President, spokesperson and minister for a long time, he did so after resigning from the assembly. The six defectors should have resigned from the assembly before joining the BJP.”

The Congress leader said this was “an insult” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who maintains that the Constitution is his religion since the six Congress defectors violated the provisions of its Tenth Schedule. “The Congress feels that horse trading involving the MLAs is the highest form of corruption. We are of the view that the 6 defectors had joined the BJP for various inducements,” he said.

He said while the Congress welcomes the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the Manipur Development Society, the terms of reference have not been disclosed. Joykishan also said that the BJP used the “Loktak lake scam” as election plank for the Lok Sabha and assembly polls but had not done anything about this “scam” so far.